Bodies line the ruins in ‘ceasefire’ Syria

British aid volunteer describes remains found in rubble of Kurdish homes hit by Turkish air strikes

A BRITISH volunteer with Syria’s Kurds last night described her “horrifying experience” of pulling victims of Turkish air strikes from rubble, as fighting continued along the Turkishsyrian border despite a declared ceasefire.

Danielle Ellis had been part of a civilian convoy attempting to deliver aid to the border town of Ras al-ayn when it came across corpses among ruins.

The convoy stopped before reaching the town after they were warned they were within the firing range of gunmen from the Syrian National Army, an opposition group that is fighting alongside Turkish forces.

“We passed a pile of rubble in the last village before Seri Kaniyê (the Kurdish name for Ras al-ayn), part of it was still smouldering,” the 29-year-old told The Daily Telegraph by phone. “A few people decided to have a look. There were a lot of bodies. I counted 10, but there were other sites being worked on so there may have been more. It had been completely destroyed by air strikes. They were all adults, I’m pretty sure men but it was impossible to say for sure because they were in a pretty bad way.”

She said she also could not be sure whether they had been fighters with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or civilians.

“One of the bodies I pulled out had a gun embedded in it. It could have been military but also many picked up arms to fight Turkey,” said Miss Ellis, who has been a civil defence volunteer with the Kurds for almost a year.

“There were children’s things about – a family had been living in the house at some point.

“We got most of the bodies out but some of them we had to leave as they were under reinforced concrete.”

She said she would guess that most of the bodies had been there for several days. “All my clothes smell of death. It’s Turkish-backed Syrian forces encircled Ras al-ayn before the ceasefire deal under my fingernails,” she said. “It was horrifying.”

Both sides accused the other of violating the five-day ceasefire. Ras al-ayn seemed the immediate test of the truce.

Before the deal’s announcement, Turkish-backed forces had encircled the town and fought fierce resistance. After a brief lull, artillery fire and ground clashes were reported and by the evening more than 14 Syrian civilians were said to have been killed.

The Syrian Kurds raised further uncertainty over a ceasefire deal, which was announced after Mike Pence, the US vice-president, held meetings with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, in Ankara. The Kurdish administration said some provisions of the deal, which was favourable to Turkey, “need further discussion with the United States”.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump drew criticism for comparing the Turks and Kurds to children fighting in a park and said “a little tough love” was needed to broker a deal.

Brett Mcgurk, who served under Mr Trump as co-ordinator of the coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, called the president’s comments “obscene and ignorant”.